Top 400 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “We should not, with Warburton, conclude from this that politics and religion have among us a common object, but that, in the first periods of nations, the one is used as an instrument for the other.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

352. “In the depths of my heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface. I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to be good is good, what I feel to be bad is bad.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

353. “Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people’s thoughts.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

354. “He certainly deserved the name better than those who had assumed it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

355. “Even if philosophers were in a position to discover truth, who among them would be interested in it? Each knows well that his system is not better founded than the others; but he supports it because it is his.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

356. “It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

357. “Born as I was the citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body, the very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affairs, however little influence my voice may have in them.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

358. “It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present artists.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

359. “From this it follows that, the larger the State, the less the liberty.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

360. “Never in a monarchy can the opulence of an individual put him above the prince; but, in a republic, it can easily put him above the laws. Then the government no longer has force, and the rich are always the true sovereign.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

361. “The wisest writers devote themselves to what a man ought to know, without asking what a child is capable of learning.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

362. “To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

363. “Savage man, once he has eaten, is at peace with all of nature and the friend of all his fellow humans. Is.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

364. “I found that stealing and being beaten went together, and in some way made up a single condition, and that by fulfilling the part of that condition that depended on me, I could leave the care of the other part to my master. From this idea, I set out to steal more calmly than before. I said to myself, “What will come of it in the end? I will be beaten. So be it: that’s what I am made for.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

365. “With the poet, it is gold and silver, but with the philosopher it is iron and corn, which have civilized men, and ruined mankind.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

366. “Toda la diferencia consiste en que, en una familia, el amor paternal recompensa al padre de los cuidados que prodiga a sus hijos, en tanto que en el Estado el placer de mandar suple el amor que el jefe no siente por sus gobernados.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

367. “The mind has its needs, as does the body. The needs of the latter are the foundations of society; the needs of the former make it pleasant.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

368. “Sometimes my reveries end in meditation, but more often my meditations end in reverie and during these wanderings, my soul roams and takes flight through the universe on the wings of the imagination and ecstasies that exceed all other pleasures.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

369. “The great secret of education is to use exercise of mind and body as relaxation one to the other.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

370. “Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

371. “There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good. The State has no right to put to death, even for the sake of making an example, any one whom it can leave alive without danger.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

372. “Why is man alone subject to becoming an imbecile? Is it not that he thereby returns to his primitive state, and that, while the animal which has acquired nothing and which also has nothing to lose, always retains its instinct, man, in losing through old age or other accidents all that his perfectibility has enabled him to acquire, thus falls even lower than the animal itself?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

373. “Wees minnaar van een ziel.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

374. “Happiness has no particular outward sign to discover itself by; we must be able to view the heart before we can be certain who are truly happy; but contentment is to be read in the eyes, the conversation, the accent, the manner, and seems to communicate itself to him that perceives it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

375. “One always wants what is good for oneself, but one does not always see it. The people is never corrupted, but it is often fooled, and only then does it appear to want what is bad.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

376. “The end of this speech cruelly belied the brilliant hopes given to me by the beginning. “What, always a lackey?” I said to myself with a bitter disdain that confidence soon erased. I felt myself too little made for that place to fear that they would leave me there.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

377. “In instinct alone, man had everything he needed in order to live in the state of nature; in a cultivated reason, he has only what he needs to live in society.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

378. “Respect childhood, and leave nature to act for a long time before you get involved with acting in its place.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

379. “Emerging society gave way to the most horrible state of war; since the human race, vilified and desolated, was no longer able to retrace its steps or give up the unfortunate acquisitions it had made, and since it labored only toward its shame by abusing the faculties that honor it, it brought itself to the brink of its ruin. Horrified by the newness of the ill, both the poor man and the rich man hope to flee from wealth, hating what they once had prayed for.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

380. “I may be asked whether I am a prince or a legislator that I should be writing about politics. I answer no: and indeed that is my reason for doing so. If I were a prince or a legislator I should not waste my time saying what ought to be done; I should do it or keep silent.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

381. “Force is a physical power; I do not see how its effects could produce morality. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will; it is at best an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a moral duty?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

382. “If then the people promises simply to obey, by that very act it dissolves itself and loses what makes it a people; the moment a master exists, there is no longer a Sovereign, and from that moment the body politic has ceased to exist.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

383. “Wise men, if they try to speak their language to the common herd instead of its own, cannot possibly make themselves understood.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

384. “I can understand how it is that city-dwellers, who see only walls and streets and crimes, have so little religion. But I cannot understand how those who live in the country, and the solitary especially, can be lacking in faith. How is it that their souls are not raised in ecstasy a hundred times a day to the Author of the wonders that strike their eyes?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

385. “War, then, is not a relation between men, but between states; in war individuals are enemies wholly by chance, not as men, not even as citizens, but only as soldiers; not as member of their country, but only as its defenders. In a word, a state can have as an enemy only another state, not men, becuase there can be no real relations between things possessing different intrinsic natures.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

386. “Respetad a la infancia y no os deis prisa en juzgarla ni para el bien ni para el mal. Dejad.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

387. “IN order to discover the rules of society best suited to nations, a superior intelligence beholding all the passions of men without experiencing any of them would be needed.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

388. “Before putting up a large building, the architect surveys and tests the ground to see if it can support the weight; in the same way the wise legislator doesn’t start by laying down his good laws but by investigating whether the populace they are intended for is in a condition to receive them.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

389. “Above all he is jealous of his own self-respect; this is his most valued possession and it would be a real loss to him were he to acquire the respect of others at the expense of his own.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

390. “As a result of quarrels, blows, furtive and poorly chosen readings, my disposition became taciturn, wild, my head began to be spoiled, and I lived like a true werewolf.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

391. “No hay derecho a matar al enemigo sino en el caso de no poderle hacer esclavo. Luego, el derecho de hacerle esclavo no viene del derecho de matarle. Por lo tanto, es un cambio inicuo hacerle comprar a costa de su libertad una vida sobre la cual nadie tiene derecho.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

392. “In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

393. “I warn the reader that this chapter requires careful reading, and that I am unable to make myself clear to those who refuse to be attentive.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

394. “We are ever looking forward or backward, ruminating on what is past, and can return no more, or anticipating the future, which may never arrive; there is nothing solid to which the heart can attach itself, neither have we here below any pleasures that are lasting.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

395. “Si hay que permitir a ciertos hombres el librarse al estudio de las ciencias y de las artes, es a aquellos que tengan fuerzas para andar solos en su busca y para adelantarlas. A.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

396. “I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are able, and the combination of divine and human laws is hardly enough to stop this disorder. I ask: has anyone ever heard of a savage man who was living in liberty ever dreaming of complaining about his life and of killing himself?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

397. “Nations, like men, are teachable only in their youth; with age they become incorrigible. Once customs are established and prejudices rooted, reform is a dangerous and fruitless enterprise; a people cannot bear to see its evils touched, even if only to be eradicated.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

398. “It was requisite for men to be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and knavery, and all the vices which form their train.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

399. “Reconcile those who are at strife, prevent lawsuits; incline children to duty, fathers to kindness; promote happy marriages; prevent annoyances; freely use the credit of your pupil’s parents on behalf of the weak who cannot obtain justice, the weak who are oppressed by the strong. Be just, human, kindly. Do.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

400. “Happy am I, for every time I meditate on governments, I always find new reasons in my inquiries for loving my own country.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau